


Where Bowers of Flowers Bloom in the Sun

by TheColorBlue



Series: Life in Present Tense [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animation, Art School, California, Disney, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky grew up in Southern California instead of Brooklyn. Steve is a student at the Chouinard Art Institute. Bucky is glad about the weather in regards to Steve's health. Also, surprise nude modeling.</p><p><i>An intensely self-indulgent fic.</i> Sticking it in with my "Life in Present Tense" in that it'll AU off the tail-end of those other fics by the end of this one, though also can be read separately. The title comes from the song "California, Here I Come."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve Rogers got a working scholarship at the Chouinard Art Institute, doing janitorial stuff like moping floors and scrubbing sinks to pay for his tuition. The fact that he’d gotten a scholarship at all might have been, as Bucky Barnes put it, partially due to his obvious artistic talent, yes, but also possibly due to what a piteous looking little guy Steve Rogers was. Those were Bucky’s words, not Steve’s. Steve was the kind of guy who always, conscientiously, stood up straight, shoulders back as best he could, and looked people straight in the eye. Bucky always said the look of Steve made Bucky want to roll him up in a blanket and feed him soup, which of course made Steve yell back, _you’re the worst you know that Bucky? The worst._

But all Bucky did in response was laugh and then shove Steve gently, and then yell _oh my God Steve_ when Steve actually fell off his bed.

 _Terrible_ , Steve said from the floor. _Just terrible_. 

Bucky was always ribbing Steve. 

But then sometimes Bucky would flip the coin and say things like: he was really glad that they lived in southern California and not somewhere there was, say, real snow, actually harsh winters. 

He’d say these kinds of things while nursing Steve through a cold or a flu or whatever goddamn bug he’d caught this time, and maybe it’d actually be winter, and cold for Los Angeles, but not enough to seem to warrant Steve’s bundling up like a hobo eskimo. 

And Bucky would be feeding Steve soup for real, and Bucky was the worst really, just the worst, but not in a way that had any actual negative connotations. 

When the weather warmed up, they went to the beach, sometimes; when Bucky wasn’t working and when Steve wasn’t working or taking his art classes. Bucky always said: the fresh air and exercise was going to do Steve good. They’d swim, Steve trying to build up some muscle while Bucky kept an eye on him like he was afraid any moment the tide was going to pull him under. They packed sandwiches and ate them on the beach and Bucky would complain of sand in his ham while Steve half-dozed, tuckered out from the strenuous exercise. Bucky would eat his sand and ham sandwiches, and then lie down next to Steve.

Steve would always think, sun warming his toes from where the beach umbrella didn’t shade them: Bucky was a good friend. 

He really was. 

\- -

Except when he wasn’t.

Sometimes Bucky was the worst, the goddamn worst. 

The fact of it was demonstrated when Steve was going to his usual Tuesday evening life drawing class, getting his supplies set up at his drawing bench, when he looked up to see the model sauntering in, wearing a flannel dressing gown and smoking a cigarette and looking utterly disreputable and 

“BUCKY, NO,” Steve yelled like he’d just witnessed his best friend come in to steal candy from small children. 

“Wow, Rogers,” said Ralph Santino next to him. “I didn’t know your lungs had it in them.” 

\- -

“You only have yourself to blame,” Bucky told him during the break. He’d relit his cigarette and was smoking away, his dressing gown pulled on loosely, and sitting on the drawing bench next to Steve’s so that he could eyeball Steve’s work. Sitting with his bare ass on the drawing bench next to Steve’s. 

“No,” Steve said again, through gritted teeth, and Bucky just grinned.

“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have thought about looking into life modeling when the acting jobs fall through. Better than picking up the mule’s labor of backstage odds and ends. Thanks for the tip.”

Steve didn’t say anything, trying to cover up his sketches of naked Bucky with his elbows. Then he said, with what might have dubious respect, “I didn’t know you could sit still for that long.” 

Bucky just looked at him. His eyes were weirdly piercing. “What can I say. I’m a guy of unending patience.” 

And then he stuck his cigarette back in his mouth and was walking back to the front of the room, as everyone started coming back in from the break to start drawing again.


	2. Chapter 2

At the age of twenty, Steve would get his first real arts-related job the same way he’d later get into the army: through sheer mull-headed persistence. He came back four times with his portfolio, and finally he was hired at the -- Animation Studio to for the Modeling Department, which did the preliminary conceptual work and maquettes for the feature films. Normally, this wouldn’t have happened, normally a guy like Steve should have started at the very bottom of the most bottom rung, but on the one hand Mr. --, creative head of the studio, happened to run into Steve on Steve’s fourth try at the office, and he—well, something about Steve’s _sheer guts_ had him grinning and clapping him on the back, asking about his arts background and so forth. Besides, Steve’s portfolio was also legitimately impressive. His use of color and patterns was bold and unusual, and he tended to go for somewhat mythic proportions in his paintings. He was a little guy who was always dreaming big, when he wasn’t getting beat up outside of movie theaters. So they put him in as an assistant with one of the guys in the Modeling Department, and for a while he’d basically be an upstart gopher, running errands and all of that, while also attending the studio’s in-house arts training classes. 

Bucky, meanwhile, was doing odd jobs—sometimes hired as an extra in films around town, mostly RKO, doing some life modeling, picking up day work as hired labor backstage when they needed it. He was a charming, good looking guy, was the thing. He could dress up a set as well, if not better, than a lot of other good looking guys out there, and he could dance to boot. 

But on some days he didn’t have work, which was how

“You’re going to get me fired Bucky!”

Steve had pulled Bucky out into the hall, and was waving his hands at him.

“How did you even get in here?” 

Bucky rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Security isn’t exactly air-tight around here,” he drawled. “Also, I told the guy a the front entrance that Steve Rogers forgot his lunch. That little guy has special nutritionally requirements, don’t you know.”

“Of all the bull,” Steve retorted, before taking the sack lunch Bucky held out. He peered inside, and said, “Bucky. All that’s in here is a turkey sandwich and some apple slices.”

“Don’t forget the chocolate bar. Growing kids deserve dessert too.” He winked at Steve, but Steve barely noticed it, closing the bag up again. “Okay, thanks Bucky, I appreciate—heyy, wait a minute. No. Noooo. Don’t go in there, don’t you dare—”

It was too late. 

Bucky had already strolled in, charming his way into getting shown what was going on in that office anyway. Just a casual visit by Steve’s very good friend. 

It was a slow day, anyway, and a lot of the guys weren’t exactly passing up on the chance to take a break. Even the one woman in their department, Sylvia Holland, just crossed her arms when Bucky tried to turn his charms in her direction, but let him look at the pastels she was putting together for The Concert Feature. It helped that Bucky’s compliments and admiration of the art around was sincere. 

Bucky stayed until lunch. He stuck around like an inquisitive kid watching people get along with their work, and then helping Steve when he needed to go deliver some of the reference materials to the Layout Department, run messages down to the Music rooms, that kind of thing. 

Bucky was…

Bucky was too much for Steve. 

“You’re too much of a guy,” Steve said, when they were sitting out in the backlot courtyard at lunchtime. “I’ll never understand how you can just… insinuate yourself into places like this, or anywhere, and act like you completely belong there.”

“I’m not that different from you,” Bucky said, shrugging. “When you want something, you don’t even hesitate. I’ve seen it.” He clapped an arm around Steve’s shoulders, shaking him up a little, before letting go. “We’re cut of the same cloth, you and I, Rogers.”

“Oh, sure,” Steve said. “If you count the trimmed off discarded bits as part of the whole cloth, well why not.” 

He didn’t really mean it self-depreciatingly about himself. At least, that’s what he would have said if pressed, but now Bucky was frowning at him, and Steve pretended to be completely absorbed in searching through the contents of his lunch bag. He fished out the sandwich and offered half, and Bucky just gave Steve a cocky look and said, “Naww, I brought that for you. I’ll get something else for myself after I leave.”

He accepted a slice of apple, though, when Steve offered it. 

“What were you going to eat if I didn’t come around?” Bucky finally asked.

“Oh. Well. There’s a greasy spoon across the street that’s affordable—”

“My God, do I really need to be your mother hen now?” Bucky asked. He seemed to be only half-joking. “You need to take care of yourself, Steve.” 

Steve didn’t say anything. He took another bite out of his sandwich, and when Bucky finally said he’d go, at the end of the lunch break, Steve said, “Don’t get up to anything stupid with your free afternoon.”

Bucky just grinned and asked, “How can I, when you’re—”

“—taking all the stupid with me, I know, I know,” Steve said, shaking his head. 

Ridiculous Bucky and his ridiculous brown bag lunches. 

Like always: Bucky was going out of his way to look after Steve. And now Bucky seemed to even be following him to work, which Steve thought: he should have been complaining more about that. He could have. 

But then he looked at Bucky and there wasn’t anything that he could say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: Sylvia Moberly-Holland cameo: Holland was a real artist employed at the Disney Studios, and is described in John Canemaker's _Before the Animation Begins_ as possibly being the closest the studio ever had to a female director in the animation dept, in regards to the range of responsibilities and work that she did. Canemaker's book was published before Jennifer Lee officially became Disney's first female director of an animated film, as co-director on Frozen.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this part kind of starts tying into the main story and themes of "Life in Present Tense," if in a slightly AU kind of way, but hopefully it's still coherent if being read stand-alone.

_When Bucky comes back as the Winter Soldier, when Bucky comes back and starts watching_ Lilo and Stitch _so many times—at first, Steve wonders if he is trying to remember, in his own way. If he’s trying to remember those days back in California, before the smog settled over the landscape and before urban development and sprawl, back when Steve was employed at a studio that made films with watercolor backgrounds, and Bucky snuck in with lunches in brown paper bags… back before the war, when Bucky smiled like he was really happy—boyishly, innocently happy._

_These days, Bucky may smile, but it’s a tempered smile. There is sadness around his eyes._

_Steve watches Bucky hug a pillow to himself as he watches the film, and then he asks, tentatively, gently, if he remembers visiting the studio back when Steve worked there._

_Bucky just looks at him in that empty, nearly unfocused way, before he frowns, and looks back at the film screen._

_It’s not really an answer._

_Steve thinks: it wasn’t fair to have pressed Bucky._

_He sits down next to Bucky and lets Bucky curl up into the crook of his arm._

\- 

What Bucky told Steve was that he couldn’t find any girls who were willing to go to so boring a venue as some free violin concert at the Greek Theatre; _I mean, who even does that kind of thing for a real date_ , so guess it was just going to be the two of them since Steve seemed so keen on hearing some classical music.

Steve said, in wry protestations, “It’s not just violins. In fact, it’s not even—the music’s not even that old, it’s UCLA’s Philharmonia playing an evening of Gerswhin. I don’t know if you can get any _less_ boring than that, Bucky. In fact, I think the word you’re looking for is, in fact, classy. I think it could have made for a classy date. Not that I’m advocating for another one of your awkward attempts at pushing me into a double date, but I’m just saying. Your logic has gone completely backwards.”

Bucky shrugged, all lazy looseness and effortless grace. “Well, whatever it is. When I take a girl out, I want to do something. You know, dance, have fun. I guess I save all the boring stuff for you, Stevie. I can’t even believe I let you drag me to a art show full of gosh dang Yosemite Park photographs—”

“Hey, even you can appreciate Ansel Adams photographs, I saw you doing it Bucky.” Steve finally shook his head. “Forget it Bucky, if it’s going to be this much of a hardship—”

“Don’t try to push my buttons, Stevie,” Bucky interrupted. His voice was a smooth drawl, but there was something sharp about the way he looked at Steve. “Let’s go, all right? Here I am, ready to go. So let’s _go_.” 

The Greek Theatre was an open air venue out in Griffith Park. There were a lot of free programs hosted during the summer by the WPA, some good, some not so great, but the concert that night was pretty good, and many times better than listening to music over the radio. Bucky didn’t even doze off in the middle of it, like he’d jokingly threatened Steve with on the way over. 

When they got back to their shared apartment later that night, Bucky pulled out some beer bottles from the cupboard and some chips of ice from the ice box that he shoved down the glass necks of the bottles, in some haphazard attempt to cool them down at bit. He handed a bottle to Steve, and then opened one of the windows of the kitchen. He sipped down beer while looking out at the dark street. Steve didn’t even know what Bucky was looking at. He took a sip of beer, crunched down on a few bits of ice, taking in the fleeting chill. 

It was the summer of 1940. There was a war going on in Europe, in Asia, but the U.S. hadn’t gotten involved yet, and here they were, him and Bucky, drinking beers in Los Angeles after going out to listen to a live concert in the park. 

There was a part of Steve that thought: he didn’t know what was going on. He wasn’t stupid, but he didn’t know what was going on. What was going on here. 

The beer was loosening something inside of him. 

Bucky had turned away from the window, and was looking at him now. 

Steve smiled at Bucky. 

He hoped that it carried whatever sentiment he could feel buoyed up in his chest, that soft, nearly tender fondness. 

Bucky lowered his beer bottle. He smiled back, but there was sadness around his eyes. He put the bottle down on the counter by the sink, and then said, “All right punk, it’s way past your bedtime.”

“Jerk,” Steve retorted, almost reflexively, before he was pushing his own bottle away as well, before he was standing unsteadily, ready to go to bed, and turning away from Bucky.


End file.
